Director
11-year-old Johanna’s world is falling apart. She’s just moved across the country for her father Harry’s medical treatment, and as her father declines and her mother Naomi is consumed with caring for him, Johanna feels horribly alone. In desperation, she makes a call out into the universe for a good spirit to save her family. But as the long summer days wear on, and a series of increasingly disturbing events rips through her home, she begins to fear that something else has come instead — a terrifying presence from some dark corner of the universe that has latched on to her family and is now eating them from the inside.
Director
A young man embarks on a cosmic journey after deciding to plan a party. “His Heart Lived in Lonesome Valley” directed by Benjamin Finkel is an eerie transcendental head-trip. Never allowing itself to be fully comprehendible, the film maneuvers through the unknown with a bizarre, darkly comedic vision. To begin, the man receives a message from an ominous visitor (himself?) suggesting he have a party. Agreeing, he goes upstairs to get ready, and that's where an immortal soul (embodied as a single pea on the floor) catches his attention and leads him on a voyage through time and space. The gloriously strange conceit is delivered with enigmatic visuals and atmospheres and leaves a haunting impression.
